Alaska Senate Race Ads Mislead on Peltola’s Votes on Military Pay Raise

Ads in the Alaska Senate race are trading competing claims about former Rep. Mary Peltola’s votes on military pay raises.

In late 2023, Peltola, a Democrat, voted in favor of a compromise defense bill that included a 5.2% pay increase for members of the military. Earlier that year, she voted against a House version of the bill that included several Republican amendments she opposed.

TV ads from Republican Sen. Dan Sullivan and a super PAC supporting him exploit that bit of legislative messiness to make misleading claims that Peltola opposed military pay raises. She didn’t.

Rather, her votes reflect the political reality at the time. The House was controlled by Republicans, and the Senate by Democrats (including the independents who caucused with them). In the House bill, Republicans added several amendments, which Peltola and other Democrats criticized as partisan “poison pills.” Many of those Republican amendments were stripped away in a compromise conference report negotiated between the House and Senate.

Peltola, who served for two and a half years in the House, is now challenging Sullivan for his Senate seat. An open “jungle” primary guided by Alaska’s ranked-choice voting will be held on Aug. 18. The top four vote-getters will advance to the November general election. The race is rated a toss-up by Cook Political Report.

Democratic Group Makes False Claim in Insider-Trading Ad Attacking Susan Collins

Sen. Susan Collins helped pass a 2012 law affirming that members of Congress are not exempt from insider-trading laws and requiring them to disclose their stock and other investment trades more promptly. But an ad from a pro-Democrat group falsely claims that the Republican senator “doesn’t think” that insider trading “should be illegal.”

The TV ad from Majority Forward, an issue advocacy organization, goes on to say that Collins, who is running for reelection in Maine, “is trying to keep it so senators can get rich playing the stock market.” And a spokesperson for the group criticized the effectiveness of the 2012 law, telling us in a statement that Collins is “blocking the only thing that would actually work” to stop Congress from profiting on insider information – “a ban on members trading individual stocks.”

It’s true that Collins does not support a complete ban on stock trading by representatives and senators. A spokesperson for her Senate campaign told us that she believes they should still be able to maintain a stock portfolio “managed by an outside advisor who makes the decisions independently and without consultation with the member.”

But that’s not the same as thinking that insider trading should be legal.